L72

Part 0ne 0rganizations, Management,'and the Networked Enterprise

GREEN I.T. AT WIPRO

Wipro Tbchnologies flMipro), a division of

\fipro

Limited, provide s inte grate d busine ss, technologr

and process solutions. In the indian market, Wipro
is a leader in providing IT solutions and seryices for
the corporate segment in India, offering system integration, software solutions and IT serrrices. It is a
global U.S. $ 10 billion company rhat has won
numerous awards for its leadership, social responsibility, and customer care.
Wipro started its green journey with consolidation
and virtualization to scale down the enersr consumption in its own datacenter. The exponential
growth of Wipro's Eerver use was becoming a major
problem and created an impact on enerry costs. The
IT team decided to tackle the probiem wirhblade
servers and virtuaiization. Commenting on the decision, CIO Laxman Badiga said, ,,... The amount of
space we used in the datacenter vras optimized by
consolidating our servers for different appiications.
This helped open space and optimize our cooling
needs.n

The move to convert a non-green datacenter into

a green one, however, was not easy. There was a lot
of financial strain associated with the move. For
example, the initial inve$tment to virtualize the

infrastructure was Rs. 6 miilion, which needed to be

augmented by 5 to 10 percent with the increase in
business needs. Furthermore, the entire datacenter
blueprint - which maintained data like how the organization laid out its racks, how much cooiing and
power were needed per rack - had to undergo
review; and the power and cooling reiluirements had
to be re-architected for the new datacenter.
Commenting on the chalienges, Jethin Chandran
GM-IT Pianning, said, ,'Retrofitting can create a ioi of
impact. Then there are challenges in downtime.o
In August 2005, the company embarked on tack_
ling the e-waste problem by getting its manufacturing facitity certified under ISO 14001. A year later,
the conrpany announced an e-waste disposal program for its customers, whereby it collected discarded systems from customers and sent them to
vendors certified by the pollution Control Board to
dispose of the parts. The e-waste management initiative dubbed - Green Computi4g - enabled end-to-end
e-waste management in its product lifecycie, spanning designing, manufacturing and up to the final
disposal of the product.

W,$rl'iii-+j'-;111:

In June 2007, Wipro became the first lndian company to introduce an eco-friendly range ofdesktops
and laptops aimed at reducing e-wast in the envi,
ronment. The new ranges of.products, named
GreenWare, were compliant with the European
Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive. The RoHS directive, adopted in 2003 by the
European Union, restricts the use of six hazardous
materials in the manufacture of various types of
electronic and electrical equipment. The new pCs
wouldbe free of hazardous materials such asbrominated flame retardants (BFR), polyvinyl chloride
(PYC) and heavy metals like lead, cadmium and
mercury that had been regularly used in the rnanufacture of computers.
' In June 2008, Wipro joined the Green Grid, a
global consortium dedicated to advancing energy
efficiency in datacenters and business computing
ecosjrstems, In the same month, \{ipro commenced
the EcoEye initiative, a comprehensive program for
increasing ecological sustainability in all its operations and engaging its sharehoiders.
Commenting on this initiative, Chandran said, u...
It is a collaborative effort betvreen our customers,
suppliers and employees. We are also working on
estabiishing supply chain social environment
responsibiiity guidelines and work with suppliers to
identify materials that will reduce the environmenta1 impact of their products.r
All this would not have been possible without the
,commitment from the top. Azim premji, chairman '
and CEO, made it his personal missioh to drive the

change.

He hadbeen closely involved witir EcoEye from

its ineeption and monitored its progress on a regular
basis. Ttre governing council comprised the senior
rnost leaders including the CIO, CFO, CAO, Head. bf
HR, and Chief Strategy Officer. At the lower level,
business units were responsible for driving green in!
tiatives to tho 95,000 plus l{ipro employees. aii pr.ojects were looked at from an ecological, as well as
financial, perspective and were signed offby the
governing council.
As a resuit of adopting green IT practices, Wipro
reduced its servers from 400 to 100 and saved about
1 million KWh'of power annually. Ttre power consumption reduced by 26 percent as a resuLt of rolling
out_power managbment tools. \{ith virtualization

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sti

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Chafter

the company is targeting a reduotion jn its selwer fbotprint by 3 percent.

ancl consoliciation,

Ethicat and Social Issues in Information Systems 173

$orrces,' John Riberiro, .Wipro Coos Green as lndia,s Ewa$te

Mounts,.' www.cio,com, Jun.e 200?; ,Expanding Green If^
www.cio-in, Novsynlsl 2008; .Wipro Launches EcoEye lilida.tise,'
wwwthehindubusiaessline.com, Jun6 l00B; Tim (iray, nWiplo
Joins the Green Crid," gren,hncnet.Goln, June 2008.

CASE STUDY OUESTIOHS

What rvere the various green initiatives undertaken by Wipro?
What were some of the chaiienges fbced by
Wipro? What benefits did \{ipro reap from grsen

computing?
What lessons can other organizations learn from
Wiprr:'s experience?
Should green-computing be driven by 1T vendors,
or shouicl it be driven by corporate customers?
Discnss.

Yisit the \{eb site at www.uripro.com and

al$o

search the Internet to answer the following questions:

L. How is IT contributing to increased cafbon

omissions? \{hat are some estimates of the extent
of the problem? Which IT practices are some of
the biggest culprits?
2. What is Wiprors carbon accounting tooi? Hoir
can it help companies?
3. What are carbon credits? How can theybe used
by \,Yipro?

4. I{hat are the green initiatives undertaken by

other mqjor IT vendors, specificaliy

Microsoft, and HP?

r Case contributed by Nee4ja Sethi and Vijay Sethi, Nanyong llbchnoiogical Universify

Dependence and Vulnerahility

lbday, our businesses, governments, schoois, and private associations, such as
churches, are incredibly dependent on infor:rnation systems and are, therefore,
highly vulnerable if these systems fail. with systems now as ubiquitous as the
telephone system, it is startling to remember that there are no regulatory or
staildard-$ettirg forces in place that are simiiar to telephone, electrical, radio,
television, or other publii utiiity technoiogies. The absence of stand.ards and
the criticaiity of some sy$tem applications r+,i11 probably call forih demands for
national standar:ds and perhaps regulatory oversight.

IBM,